A typical utility provider (e.g., gas utility, water utility, electrical utility, etc.) is often responsible for managing multiple meters that provide information about utility usage by its customers. Sometimes, these meters become lost within a networked utility system, resulting in missing endpoints corresponding to the utility meters. The endpoints may become missing for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the utility company has inadvertently lost the location of where the endpoint is installed. Other times, an endpoint is maliciously removed by a customer to avoid getting billed for consumption. In some instances, customers take a meter from one house and place it on another to avoid getting billed.
Utilities often have trouble locating these missing endpoints. In some current systems, missing endpoints generally can be identified using the radio frequency (RF) communications modules available within Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) collection networks. For example, various AMR systems utilize hand-held readers and programming devices, vehicle-mounted readers, fixed location readers, and/or combinations thereof to automatically gather consumption data and otherwise communicate with the meter endpoints in a utility network.
Some conventional AMR systems may include communications systems that utilize one-way endpoint devices that periodically transmit their consumption and related information as a “bubble-up” event. This type of transmission is known as a one-way system because the endpoint sends only outbound communications and does not receive any commands or acknowledgements from the reader. One-way systems are designed such that endpoint devices transmit their messages from once every several seconds to once per minute. Other known AMR systems utilize 1.5-way or two-way endpoint devices. One-and-one-half-way and two-way endpoints operate in a listen mode for most of the time. Reads are accomplished by interrogating specific endpoint devices by the reader. In a 1.5-way system, an endpoint responds to a wakeup tone from a reader by transmitting its consumption and related information. In a two-way system, endpoint devices are responsive to various additional commands from the reader that may specify what type of information an endpoint should transmit.
In conventional AMR systems, the communications system of a data collector, e.g., a data collection unit within a mobile reader, receives an endpoint identifier when data from a specific endpoint is read by the collector. The collector may also receive a timestamp for each endpoint when it is first read by a mobile reader. From the endpoint identifier and the timestamp, a utility can retroactively determine what the approximate area the mobile reader was in at the time of reading the missing endpoint. Since some endpoints can be read from as much as one mile away, it makes the search area quite large. As such, an RF communications tool that can help utility customers to better pinpoint the location of missing endpoints is desired.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0068947 (Holman et al.) pertains to mobile meter reading for locating stolen utility meters. In such reference, a method, collection device, and automatic meter reading (AMR) system uses a set of identifiers, such as transponder serial numbers, to build a route of utility meters that have been reported as having been stolen. When each mobile collection device's daily routes are prepared, the route of stolen utility meters is added to the other routes for which the mobile collection device is ordinarily tasked with collecting meter read data. As the mobile collection device traverses its daily routes, it collects meter read data for the stolen utility meters along with the meter read data for its other routes. The route of stolen utility meters is unloaded from the mobile collection device along with the other daily routes when the read process is finished. The route of stolen utility meters may contain information that may assist the utility company in locating the stolen utility meters.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,847,707 (Bakken et al.) discloses a method and system for collecting meter readings in wireless transmissions from unlisted customers. In such patent, an out-of-route collection capability is provided for an AMR data collection system of a type that collects readings within a geographic area using a radio. If a transmission is received from an out-of-route transmitter, its location is based on a geographic location of the data collector as the data collector receives data from the out-of-route transmitter. The location can further be determined by evaluating a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) for the transmission. The out-of-route transmitter is identified by association with a transmitter identification number. The out-of-route transmitters can be added to the route through operations at the central office.
The complete disclosures of the herein referenced publications are fully incorporated herein for all purposes.